The Day Until Forever
by BlueShirts
Summary: I was sixteen years old, I was supposed to have normal experiences in my teenage years and now I was stuck with this – a beautiful boy with an awful mark and nowhere to go. - Oneshot/slightly AU.


One shot

The Day Until Forever

* * *

"Right now I don't know if I want to kiss you or throw you off this bloody bridge." Draco's eyes were dark as he stood leaning against the railing. His eyes striking red, hands turned into fists causing his knuckles to go white and teeth clenched. He was mad, all right.

"Can I make the pick?"

He turned to look at me, not amused.

I contemplated my options for a while, he would either kiss me, causing me to fall into his arms and get charmed by his enchanted spell – _or_ I would be thrown off a bridge, land in the freezing water and die either because of hitting a rock or because of the cold. It was a tempting decision, I would have to ask for more time before coming up with an answer.

"I'm serious, Emily," Draco continued, his breath becoming a white cloud as he spoke. He looked like an angel where he stood, the light of the moon making his pearl white skin shine against his black button-up shirt. He had to be cold, we had left in such a hurry we had forgotten to bring any jackets, hats or gloves. The tip of his white-blonde hair turning white.

"Why?" I asked. "I see no reason for looking at this like it would mean the end of the world."

His face twisted. "But it is!" He buried his face in his hands. He was on the edge of crying, I could see it way too clearly. And it was breaking my heart.

I got to my feet after sitting at the cold surface of the wooden bridge. Slowly I took a step toward him, careful not to get too close. I had learned my lesson.

"What is going on, Draco?"

His eyes were shining of tears as he met my gaze. "It's _him_! It has always been _him_!"

"Draco, you're scaring me."

He sulked before jumping back from the railing in such a hurry I jerked in surprise. I had never seen him like this, not even when he had gotten the news that his father might go to Azkaban in a howler at breakfast. It was a miracle Lucius had gotten a free pass on that after being found at the ministry and all. It had been a long semester. He let out a cry which echoed against the snow covered hills.

"This!" he growled and pointed at his now revealed arm. An ugly mark was carved into his perfect skin and I suddenly understood everything. He was bearing the burden he had never really asked for. All those times he had given Harry, Ron and Hermione rough words, all those times he had been cocky in front of his friends and a jerk to Neville. It all now became clear to me. Time comes around to bite you in the ass. For Draco Malfoy, this meant this mark carved into his bare skin. And I felt sorry for the bastard. I really did.

"This!" he repeated, tears now dripping down his cheeks. "This is the reason, Emily! I can't – _I can't_ …" His voice breaking. He stumbled back, hitting his back against the railing and falling down, pushing his head against his knees and grabbing the back of his head with his hands.

I didn't know how to react. I didn't know what to say nor what to do. I wasn't educated for this. I was sixteen years old, I was supposed to have normal experiences in my teenage years and now I was stuck with this – a beautiful boy with an awful mark and nowhere to go. I was cold and hungry too. My limbs were shaking, teeth scattering and I was breathing unnaturally fast, it was strange I hadn't noticed that before.

It would have been a stunning night, it was a clear sky, no clouds, no wind and the atmosphere quiet and still. All the stars were revealed, the moon almost at its peak, the glistering snow shining as the perfect blanket it had set during the day. The cold crippling into underneath our skin.

"I think I choose to get thrown off the bridge," I concluded and grinned. Because that's what I always do, make a situation worse by throwing out an awkward comment.

Only this time it might actually have worked.

Draco raised his head to look at me, and he snorted. "Right, I suspected you would prefer that option." He dried off his wet cheeks with the sleeve of his shirt. "We should probably head back before my mother calls for a searching party." I could hear it in his voice that he really didn't want to head back. I didn't blame him, I would do anything to avoid it myself.

The night had started off all right, we had arrived close after five o'clock, my parents saying their hello's to Narcissa and Lucius, then exchanging some nice comments about the politics, the weather and such. My parents had no inclusion in the business of dark wizardry, this because my parents and I actually only just had moved to London. Though, let's save that story for another time.

We sat down to eat a delicious dinner while discussing mine and Draco's school year, considering it was our second to last. My parents asking if Draco enjoyed it, he said he thought the headmaster and teacher were a waste of time – except for Professor Snape – and me trying not to roll my eyes at him.

This was the thing about us, my parents only knew his family because of Lucius and my father being best friends at their childhood. They grew apart before Lucius started Hogwarts and my dad moving with my grandparents. I knew Lucius had gone a slightly darker path than my father, and that we had only accepted the New Years Celebration – invitation because I had let slip that Draco and I were in the same grade at Hogwarts. A couple of owl-posts later, we ended up at the Malfoy Manor.

I knew I was wishing for the unreal for ever thinking there might be a possibility that Lucius would change his perspective by my father. That he somehow would turn against the Dark Lord and realise there were better ways of protecting his family than joining the terrifying side. Look where it had gotten, if only Lucius could see his son now.

As the dinner had come to an end, I had pulled the last straw. Draco had rushed out from dinner after shortly excusing himself and me rushing after him trying to apologize. I had gone too far, I knew it, but I had only been honest. My parents were probably back there now, trying to apologize to the Malfoy couple, explaining I was out of my mind sometimes and really should learn how to use a filter. Then again, claiming it was their fault their son was an arrogant bully with a bunch of potential if given the right opportunities, didn't sound too bad in my ears.

"Or not," I said. "Why go back? I bet my dad is in the middle of a trip down memory lane when they used to peek on topless muggles through the bushes at Kensington Gardens."

Draco shook his head. "You're so lucky, you know that?"

I snapped my fingers before his face, causing him to jerk back. "Wake up, pretty face, the world's not revolving around you. My life isn't lucky, I just picked another ticket in the queue of life decisions. I'm not saying that mark is your fault, but I'm not saying that it isn't. Now that you've got it you've got two options, ironically similar to the ones you gave me."

"What?" he snapped and got to his feet. "So you're saying I can either jump this bridge or kiss You-Know-Who? You're so stupid sometimes, you know that?"

I slapped my hand over my forehead. "Boys, always so literal."

"Right, now you're mocking me, thanks a lot!"

I reached out for his arm as he tried to pass me, if I hadn't been as cold as him, I would have shuddered at the touch. He spun around to face me, his expression telling me he was close to walk away from me for real this time.

"I'm not mocking you, Draco, I'm trying to _help_ you," I tried carefully.

"Well, I don't _want_ your help!" He pulled himself free from my grip.

I wouldn't give up that easily. "Yes you do! You just won't admit it! Listen to me, you can either go back into that house, nod at every demand your parents are giving you, or you can pick a chance, come with me and ask for help from the one person who can make this right." I made myself stubbornly stare into his grey eyes, they were sparkling out of the reflection of the snow. " _Please_ , just trust me, Draco."

He must've had a long argument inside his head, in my imagination I pictured two lizards hissing at each other trying to prove the other one wrong. In the end, he broke the eye contact, licked his lips and switched the weight on his feet.

"I can't believe I'm about to do this," he mumbled. My heartbeat raising inside my chest, the sound of it threatening to pop my eardrums reminding me to keep on breathing. "I'll go."

" _What_?" I gasped.

"I'll go with you," he repeated as he met my eyes.

If my heart hadn't been broken a thousand of times already and been picked together just the same amount, I would have been sure this was the most warming feeling there had ever been. For once, I was grateful we hadn't used magic to heat up our body temperature, because the feeling of overwhelm wouldn't have felt as human as it did at that exact moment.

Draco Malfoy wasn't perfect, he never would be. He was an annoying, ungrateful, kind of a tosser and a knob head. But he was _my_ annoying knob head and I was proud of that.

"You know what," I said with my shaking, cracking voice, "that was probably the first step into manhood you managed to take on your own two feet."

Proud as always, he scowled, pushed his hands down his pockets and took a step back with his head held high. "Right, so what do we do next?"

"We need to get into contact with Dumbledore and get our asses into hiding," I stated and hugged my arms around my body. "And get some warmer clothes." I was wearing a red, knee-high, short-sleeved dress. I would for sure catch a cold, maybe even anaemia.

"Asses?" Draco mocked. "Where are you from? America?"

"Fine make fun of my way of speaking, at least I know three languages and not _one_!" Childish as I could be, I poked my tongue at him.

"Right, because there are a bunch of people in the world who can communicate in Swedish and Finnish." He rolled his eyes.

"You'd be surprised."

"We should get going, the more time we waste the bigger are the odds someone will catch us," said Draco and glanced at his watch. "It's almost midnight."

"How many more minutes?" I asked.

"Eight."

"Let's stay here until it hits twelve, it's so beautiful and I really want to catch this picture inside my mind before I forget it forever," I stated.

"Right," he muttered, "let's stay out in the cold a bit longer." He reached for his wand. "I will fix this."

"NO!"

He almost dropped his wand at my cry. "What now?"

"Sorry." I blinked a couple of times, gathering my thoughts. "Let's just leave it like this and try to appreciate what we have at this exact moment, not what we _can_ have."

Draco hesitated before putting his wand back in his pocket. "You're a nutter, you know that?" He let out a huge breath and cloud of white air formed in front of him. His ears had turned red and lips were getting close to purple. I didn't want to know what I could possibly look like.

I was a rather short person, I would believe, a head shorter than Draco, coconut brown hair reaching halfway to my butt and dark brown eyes. My grandma always said I looked like an Indian girl, destined to wear different bracelets and necklaces made out of leather. Though I did have rather big ears and a round face. Boys back home didn't look at me twice, they liked the tall blondes with blue eyes and sparkling skin.

Draco glanced at his watch again, shuddering. "Five minutes left."

He went back to leaning against the railing weighing on his hands and looking out at the hills. In the far you could extinguish treetops and some lights from other civilisation. Perhaps we could walk there after midnight, try and look for a good place to reach out to the Knight Bus, go to London and try to contact Dumbledore from there. Or we could try and get to Hogsmeade and then walk to Hogwarts? We would be much safer inside the school grounds.

"So, what's the plan, Anderson?" Draco asked followed by a sign. "Knock on the doors of muggles, steal their food and run every half hour?"

"I was just thinking about that, sounds like a lovely plan, why don't we include wearing masks of hippogriffs as well?"

Draco made a grimace. "Don't mention those awful creatures."

"Right, you're scared of them."

"I am not scared!"

He stared at me with what should have been complete confidence.

"Right," I said. "What time do we have left?"

"Three minutes," he stated.

Three minutes left, then the sky would be painted in a light of a thousand different colours. I loved watching the fireworks from afar, I always had, it make me disappear for a while, kind of like right now. Getting lost in the cold feeling, toes going numb and fingers turning into ice. It made me feel more alive than ever. It's weird, the simplest things may bring the most life into our minds.

"Could you stop shaking like a leaf?" Draco snapped. "It's becoming annoying."

"You're the one to talk, y-your lips are purple," I shot back, rubbing my arms.

"You're unbelievable," he mumbled as he reached out, grabbed my arm and pulled me towards him. The next thing I knew, he was holding me. Like, _really_ holding me. My back was held against his chest, his arms running along mine before linking our hands right before my belly. To my surprise, it made me feel warmer immediately, but probably not by the reason of which Draco had tried to affect.

"Better?" he whispered in my ear.

I couldn't do anything else than nod. I was such a girl. I really shouldn't react this way of him holding me. We didn't like each other _that_ way, we really didn't like each other at all. Or we shouldn't like each other. He was a Slytherin, I was a Gryffindor. Every conversation we had had up until this night had been about him being a nasty git towards my friends or me being annoying for pointing out that we weren't that dissimilar. We both wanted the same thing, for the pain to end, even though the pain would be strongly different, it aimed for the same goal. Draco wanted to get rid of his burden of being a Death Eater and I wanted to be able to tell my parents about what I truly wanted. In my head, that was as bad as bearing the mark he had printed on him.

"One minute and fifty seconds," I said after glancing at his fancy, expensive watch. Spoiled bastard. "Want to make a wish?"

"Wishes are for mudbloods," he answered.

I sighed. You couldn't get it all at once. "Want to hear my wish?"

"Do I _have_ a choice?"

I decided to ignore him. "I wish for the strength to tell my parents the truth."

"The truth of what?" I could feel the warmth of his breath against my face. His head was getting closer to mine, I could feel his cheek leaning against my ear.

"Of who I want to be."

"And who is that?"

"I want to quit school, pack my suitcase and travel the world. I want to feel the freedom of being able to choose the next train, bus or broomstick and feel like I can fly wherever my heart desire it the most. I want to experience the adventures I'm going to write when I'm forty."

He tightened his grip around me and I closed my eyes for the fraction of a second. I had never told anyone about my dream, it was the most revealing feeling I'd ever felt. Like opening up the door on the first day of spring and letting all the fresh air inside.

"Then why don't you?" he asked.

"My parents has a different path in mind, one with a finished education and a house two blocks away included," I explained.

"Welcome to my world."

I glanced at his watch again, half a minute. That's thirty seconds until the sky would light up and the magic revolving around us would be gone and we have to run away and perhaps never look back. I didn't want to think about what was going to happen thirty seconds from now, I wanted to seize this moment, put it in my pocket and keep it there for an eternity. Keep it as the day until forever.

"Hey Draco," I whispered.

"Hmm?" His sound tickling my ear.

"I have changed my mind about my ultimatum," I said as the sound of millions of people counting down for midnight sounded in the far distance, the echo of glasses clashing into each other rang and before the sky finally exploded into a sea of countless of magical colours. "Is that kiss too late to ask for?"


End file.
